Friday, November 26, 2021

Frugal Friday

 I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving (if you are in the US) & got to spend time with family. As always, I'm so thankful for my friends & family & feel truly lucky. Thanksgiving is a small holiday for us (just the four of us), but no less special due to size. 

Saving on things we buy

  • I've been saving my grocery store points for November, knowing our Thanksgiving feast would push us a bit over our standard spending. I used $27 of grocery store rewards to offset a purchase
  • I also picked up the Friday Freebie (cookie dough) at the store, and uploaded my receipts to Fetch & iBotta. No major savings, but a bit here & there. I haven't been buying anything on iBotta lately, but I did take advantage of a couple of small "any item" receipt offers. 
  • Earned a free package of Klondike bars via Fetch
  • Took advantage of $20 of Fetch gift card rewards
  • On the same Fetch transaction, earned a $10 Target gift card on a double dip. I was unaware that Target had their own promotion on the gift cards, so I was doubly excited. ;-) 
  • I made a few gift card purchases at Rite Aid, and three of them failed. The manager was super nice, and called their customer service & patiently dealt with an extremely long hold time, in order to get my rewards credited to my account. 
  • Took advantage of a few Rite Aid Black Friday deals to pick up snacks & frozen pizza & the like. I used the Rite Aid rewards from the gift card transactions (above), to pay $5 for $55 worth of items. (Food & toiletries for donations)

Earning money

  • I haven't been listing things on eBay, but have driven Nick to reffing games, so he can earn money. That's my current "side hustle", so to speak. ;-) 
  • I also sold one older item, earning $40 or so (have to ship it out)
  • Redeemed Fetch rewards (above) for a $25 Amazon gift card. I'm close to having another $10, which is great for the holidays. 

Avoiding spending

  • I've been trying to get creative with meal planning, to ensure we're using what we have & minimizing our grocery spending. That seems like a really good idea, with the current costs!

Eating what we have

  • I've been working my way through the single serving freezer items for lunch, & had a chicken fiesta rice dish with a bit of guacamole for lunch one day. Delicious, easy, & one more item out of the freezer. 
  • Nick finished off the last of a bag of pizza rolls, which had been in the freezer for quite some time
  • Defrosted a Costco lasagna, and had that for dinner one night.
  • I continue to bring in our tomatoes to ripen, and I'm still picking a few strawberries per week. We use them in smoothies. We are also still getting a few green peppers, and lots of jalapenos. 
  • The boys finished off the leftover takeout pizza, but that was no hardship for them ;-) 
  • I had a beef stew for lunch one day (from the freezer) along with a leftover piece of garlic bread. 

For others

  • Uploaded my receipts to Box Top, as I was picking up cereal & stuffing, both of which were eligible for Box Tops. There was also a Thanksgiving promo that increased the donation by another $1. 
  • Donated ski clothes via Buy Nothing, as well as some jeans that M & Sam didn't need. Also gave away a few shirts. 
  • Had a couple of calls for my non-profit, & with my mentee
  • Made a donation to the boys school athletic department, to help with new uniforms. Submitted all of my recent donations for company matches. 
  • Entered my time volunteering, and my company will match my time with a cash donation
  • Helped a friend sponsor a family for the holidays
  • Picked up a bunch of inexpensive toiletries & cleaning products for donation to the local shelter
What about you? Any wins to share?

6 comments:

  1. Certainly no hardship to polish off the pizza! I'm at another Target card, or should be today with MS rewards. Not a lot but getting money to play trivia is a win. Thanksgiving ended up costing another $15 as I bought the dinner rolls after my sister who was supposed to bring got sick, but overall, I'm under budget for November.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice work earning another Target gift card, and great job being under budget for November!

      Delete
  2. Sounds like a good week for you. We got a few strawberries here too. Sounds like you all had a nice Thanksgiving too. I hope you have a great weekend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanksgiving was lovely. Hope you all had a nice day as well.

      Delete
  3. What a great week you had.

    God bless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! There were definitely some good wins in there.

      Delete